Fulbrighters: Developing a Capacity for Empathy

Berkeley Has Been Central in Sending Forth, Hosting Recipients for
Decades

In the 50 years since Congress approved the Fulbright international
exchange program, the world has changed dramatically. And Berkeley, one of the
most active universities in the program, can attest to that.

This year coming to study at Berkeley is an economist from Slovenia. Leaving
Berkeley for the year is a graduate student doing a dissertation in the
Ukraine. Both have Fulbright grants.

Neither country existed when Sen. William Fulbright convinced fellow lawmakers
that an excellent way to make use of World War II debt that foreign countries
owed the U.S. was to use these foreign credits for education.

Sen. Fulbright believed that if people lived and studied in other countries,
"they might develop a capacity for empathy, a distaste for killing other men
and an inclination for peace." Berkeley's Academic Senate awarded the senator
the Clark Kerr Award in 1989.

Since the approval of Public Law 584 in 1946 and the broadened Fulbright-Hays
Act of 1961, more than 31,000 American scholars have received grants to lecture
and conduct research in countries around the globe, and many thousands more
have come to the U.S. to study in programs sponsored jointly by the Fulbright
Program and their home countries.

At Berkeley, the Graduate Fellowships Office, the Graduate Deans' Office and
individual departments administer programs that fall under the Fulbright
umbrella. Each year, Berkeley scholars and professional staff travel abroad
and the campus hosts visiting scholars.

Graduating seniors and graduate students not working on their dissertations
travel under one program while those writing their doctoral dissertations
travel under another.

This year, for example, Law Professor James Gordley received a Fulbright grant
to spend three months in Italy lecturing on comparative private law, while
Stephanie Pincetl, a fellow in the geography department, is doing research in
Paris and in Los Angeles; and Scott McElhinney, a study abroad adviser on
campus, is spending a month in Japan lecturing on international education.

Five Berkeley graduate students are using Fulbright grants to work on
dissertations in Vietnam, the Ukraine, India, Pakistan and China. And several
dozen seniors and graduate students are studying abroad.

Fulbright grants provide funding for travel abroad and living expenses for the
duration of the study or research period.

Among foreign scholars seeking approval to teach or do research at Berkeley
in the coming year are a specialist in bilingual and multicultural education
from the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur and scholars from Yonsei
University in Korea, Warsaw University of Technology, Chiang Mai University in
Thailand and the University of Bahrain, among others.

"Berkeley has always been a very special place for Fulbrighters," said Kate
Leivia, manager of education services in the San Francisco office of the
Institute of International Education. She praised the staff at Berkeley for
its "wonderful professional support."

Berkeley scholars have praise for the program as well. History Professor Leon
Litwack has twice been a

Fulbrighter. His first was at Moscow State University in 1980 for six months.
He taught American history and found his Soviet students had "a fairly
sophisticated understanding" of our history.

"It was an exhilarating experience in all respects," said Litwack. "I think
back on that time with great warmth."

George Sensabaugh, professor of biomedical and environmental sciences in the
School of Public Health, received a Fulbright award in 1993-94 to work with
London's police laboratory doing leading DNA research. "London was the only
place in the world" where all sexual assault crimes were carried through with
DNA analysis, he said.

The Fulbright award came at a particularly welcome time for Sensabaugh. After
five years as department chair during very difficult budget times, he said, the
Fulbright grant gave him the opportunity to "re-enter the research mode" and
"lay a foundation for where I'd like to go."

The application deadline for 1997-98 grants for U.S. faculty and
professionals is Aug. 1. Starting dates are flexible and stays may range from
two months to an academic year. These are administered by the Council for
International Exchange of Scholars. It has a World Wide Web site:
http://www.cies.org/

The Fulbright Program, which has several events planned to celebrate its 50th
anniversary, is funded and administered by the United States Information
Agency. The presidentially appointed J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship
Board Formulates policy guidelines.